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Hello! Welcome to my blog. My name is Marianne and I live in Melbourne with my husband and our very fluffy cat, Babycat. (Who, at 7 years old, is hardly a kitten anymore but she will always be our baby!) I grew up in London and moved to Melbourne aged 22 for adventure and for love, which turned out to be a great idea as we are now happily married. I love vintage, especially the 1930s to the 1950s, and can skip happily over some of the 1960s to enjoy lots of that beautiful and otherworldly 1970s stuff. Here I write about my life in Melbourne and the things that interest me: clothes (especially of the vintage kind), beauty, makeup, food, interiors, travel, books, films (old ones please), going out, staying home, cocktails in bars, dinners in restaurants, breakfasts in cafes, walking in parks, biking down backstreets, taking photographs in conspicuous places, drinking coffee in bed, my endless love of platform shoes, and sometimes cats, too.

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Thursday, 27 February 2014

home made pasta for dinner, with salad and tomatoes from the garden

One evening last week, John and I went for dinner at his mother's house. I really like these nights, and we go quite often. I especially like them in the summer, as I get to live out my fantasies of having a garden and chickens and growing vegetables, even if it is just for a couple of hours.

It was a nice, cool late summer evening, although I got too hot (and completely saturated) on the long drive through the city's rush hour traffic. Yuck. I wore this vintage pink dress, which I got for last summer (as always, it was bought with the intention of being worn for years, not just one season) and got loads of wear out of, but then the zip broke. I finally fixed up the zip (tedious task, oh YAWN) just in time for the final few sunny weeks we've got left.

And I am so glad I did. To look at, I find the hot pink and white swirly print quite bright, but it's actually really easy – and nice – to wear. I'm chuffed to have it back in rotation. You can never have too many cotton sundresses!
I would love to grow just some vegetables at home, and might be able to get a couple of small-ish pots going out the front this Autumn. Nothing like this, though. Look at these zucchinis! We are lucky as a lot of them get sent our way, maybe even too many... just how many things can you cook with zucchini? I love the flowers, too, and must remember to get some if we can.
I popped my head over the fence to say hello to the ladies.
And I always check to see if there is an egg waiting to be collected. Of course there never is, as John's mum picks them up in the daytime, but I am forever hopeful to find a fresh one, warm in the straw and ready to join the little mountain of them in the kitchen, or the cardboard boxes we use to take home two dozen at a time. (I am getting lots of practice at cooking the perfect creamy omelette.)
Home grown salad is amazing, and anything from the supermarket is incomparable. The rocket is so peppery and kind of green, as in fresh, tasting. Yum.
Every year, piles of wood are dried out, a fire is lit under the 44 gallon drum, and tomato salsa is made: fresh tomato cooked with salt and a basil leaf, and put into cleaned beer bottles collected in the months beforehand and then boiled overnight to preserve it all. It lasts about a year in a cool dark place. We are so lucky to get to take armloads of these home afterwards. We've helped make it a few times, too, but not this year. In fact, here is the grand total of my assistance with it, sitting on the wall by the fireplace and looking ethereal.
Phew. It's a shame, in a way, as it's really fun to make, and I love the smokey fire smell – but it does mean getting going at 5am or so. Sleep-ins on the weekend are stiff competition, really!
After admiring the garden it was time for dinner. We're spoiled with home made pasta, chicken schnitzel, and tomatoes and salad from the garden. No fancy food styling for the camera here, this is just as it was, with clingwrapped sliced cheese from the fridge (we all have our quirks), olives served in the little plastic tub they live in, and pre grated parmesan from the freezer. There's also always lots of fresh slices of bread to turn everything into a massive sandwich. Delicious.
We finished with cups of tea (coffee would keep us up all night, although I don't think that's so very bad) and home made biscottini, chopped very thin and with just the right amount of squish. I love these, and like to pretend that I am eating something really quite healthful and virtuous, before greedily reaching for a second one. Still, I am taking no responsibility for the almost empty tin, it was like that when I got there! They do go down so easily.

Anonymous Pretty Florals : :( I know what you mean, I'm going to gt my tiny violin out for myself as the way our windows are, we don't actually have window sills! True story! ;D

Catherine Beck : thanks! It tastes so amazingly different, I really hope to manage it now the death sun has backed off.

Sally: ooh this soudns like an excellent idea. I've always avoided making carrot cake as I'm allergic to carrots (!) but I didn't know I could substitute zucchini... and I'm in the mood for a good cake..! Thanks for the tip! x

I love making zucchini fritters for a light summer dinner! It's seriously one of my favourite meals.

Super easy to make, loads of recipes online (although I usually omit the cheese they include) and then just serve them with a bit of smoked salmon, rocket and natural yogurt (mix in some garlic, lemon and nutmeg to taste).

You can throw in loads of other veges too - I normally put in some corn and chickpeas too. Delish!

These are very nice pictures, I like to go through your blog because of it. I also adore your hairdo you are wearing in this post.BTW this is the first time I saw the rocket as a whole plant, I did not know how it looks, although I love its taste.

There is such an enveloping, fabulously warm, golden light dancing through these beautiful photos. It reminds me, quite powerfully, of similar sunshine that used to kiss my grandparent's house and yard at the very end of summer when I was a little girl.